As a freelance photographer, university student in my 20s and Earth inhabitant, I’ve got a lot to loose in this world. Which is one reason I’ve made it my mission to only work with sustainable brands and revolutionary people. I don’t think everyone can be everything they aspire to be all of the time, but I also think it’s important to at least try to work towards your goals. My goal for this is clearing things up a little, so more people can overthink their priorities and reset their boundaries. 

All our little big problems in life will not matter in the future if the world and planet they exist on doesn’t exist anymore. We have to save ourselves from the ground up: existence first. 

Voting for political parties who don’t care about the climate crisis (nor the people suffering most from its dangers) will be a complete disaster for every single person on planet Earth. In my opinion, the true trigger of the climate crisis is the way humans deal with chaos. Or rather, the attempt to avoid chaos at all cost. To sustainably resolve this issue globally, humans must stop hiding behind short-term solutions, as those hinder the necessity to find long-term solutions. 

You may now say, “Scientists have been going on about it for decades!”, but why are they still not taken seriously? I share your confusion: It never stops baffling me that countless people simply aren’t concerned about the effects of their actions.

I reckon part of it is the abstraction of the term “climate”, which seems global and average, not local and personal. Climate is not just there and differs in various landscapes and latitudes. It is fluent and adjusts. The term itself gives off the impression it’s all a naturally given state and humans aren’t influencing the change of climate.

However, it’s never an individual and cultural connection to weather, but a political one. As a result, people don’t feel personally responsible and shift the blame elsewhere to rely on other solutions: like technology. Every couple of years there’s some form of technological renewal, which revolutionizes everything. But intentional human actions never seem to be the cause of rescue.

We avoid chaos (aka changing something) by supporting the people in charge to quickly come up with instant solutions. However, the “solutions” that provide quick results usually aren’t ecological or socially balanced. Looking at history, humans are willing to sacrifice even core values like democracy and peace to have someone promise them to uphold their status quo. As I find this human trait of need for stubborn-comfort absolutely bizarre, I’d like to elaborate on some consequences this behaviour can evoke:

1. There are so-called tipping points, which are often suitably and dramatically described as “the beginning of the end”. Once a certain point of change is reached (% of ice caps melt/rainforest deforestation/desertion/CO2 in the atmosphere …), the rising temperature will become a self-inflicted cycle. Once those numbers are hit, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to stop it. This is why scientists so urgently push for action now. 

2. We need to act in ways that will work long-term. Don’t let politicians fool you with promises of fast results to be re-elected. Usually, good things take time. And as countries continue to fail their climate goals, you could consider that enough proof of their agendas. The saying doesn’t go “actions speak louder than words” for nothing. 

So, notice the actions. Don’t buy fast-fashion. Don’t support someone’s promises to fix things if results don’t follow. 

Protect and restore eco-systems at all costs.

3. Listen to science, not companies. (Science is facts. Companies are businesses, who tend to put their own interests first.) The most successful marketing campaign was the one stating that “everyone is equally responsible for climate change and can do something about it”. It skilfully deflects the guilt, attention, and responsibility from coal, oil and other companies, who are actually responsible for the vast majority of the damage. The biggest accelerator of the dramatic change the climate crisis will bring, is in the energy sector: the greenhouse gases. 

Don’t get me wrong: we absolutely CAN do something about these issues. We just have to get going asap. The right policies being put into place would surely speed up the need for companies to find the sustainable solutions. So politics are indeed at the very center of it.

Making sure the climate budget is distributed efficiently (based on scientific research) means completely transforming the economy. It should be our number one priority, as this version of “chaos” will provide the bases for almost all other sustainable solutions. And as we all should know by now – we better get going with those.

Whether you do or do not agree with my opinion is undoubtably your own decision, but I hope either way you’ll think more deeply about how you talk about this issue. Never dismiss sustainable solutions for the sake of fast results. Life on planet Earth at +2 °C will not be fun, for any of us.